Course Module - BAFI103 Ideas and Concepts Lecture - Dan P
Week 1
Lesson 1 Objectives:
- Setting up a blog
- Show rough work - Get feedback through group discussions
- Competition and co-operation
Introduction to 'Super 8 City'
Our lecturer Dan introduced himself to the class, we gradually got to learn about his background and how he got into film, from just a young age he admired Punk as a music genre and he frequently took his camera along to music gigs where he filmed closely alongside a band called Napalm Death.
During the morning session, we were told to set up our blogs which would be used to record and display our research/post production ideas and of course our Super 8 project with an evaluation, 1000 words to talk about our piece, why did we film this, what was the message we were trying to get across.
Group Discussions happened throughout the day which helped to generate lots of ideas from which myself and Jay took away with us to discuss further, we researched into Super 8 films which previously had been created by Plymouth College of Art students. One specific piece of the students work which caught my eye had a native feel to it, shot in the form of a journey where we could see artefacts, caves, plus it contained a soundtrack of someones footsteps, they were on a journey through a native place (Didjeridu noises (instrument) - which linked back to the native atmosphere, which in my view, the film could have been set in Africa or Australia.
My partner and I started to research further into the types of effects that could be used, how they can be used effectively i.e. Bleaching, Grain, Tone etc and we looked into how the camera can operate effectively to make an aesthetically pleasing product. We looked at others work on sites such as Youtube and Vimeo to see the sorts of films that could be produced with a super 8 camera.
Our lecturer Dan introduced himself to the class, we gradually got to learn about his background and how he got into film, from just a young age he admired Punk as a music genre and he frequently took his camera along to music gigs where he filmed closely alongside a band called Napalm Death.
During the morning session, we were told to set up our blogs which would be used to record and display our research/post production ideas and of course our Super 8 project with an evaluation, 1000 words to talk about our piece, why did we film this, what was the message we were trying to get across.
Group Discussions happened throughout the day which helped to generate lots of ideas from which myself and Jay took away with us to discuss further, we researched into Super 8 films which previously had been created by Plymouth College of Art students. One specific piece of the students work which caught my eye had a native feel to it, shot in the form of a journey where we could see artefacts, caves, plus it contained a soundtrack of someones footsteps, they were on a journey through a native place (Didjeridu noises (instrument) - which linked back to the native atmosphere, which in my view, the film could have been set in Africa or Australia.
My partner and I started to research further into the types of effects that could be used, how they can be used effectively i.e. Bleaching, Grain, Tone etc and we looked into how the camera can operate effectively to make an aesthetically pleasing product. We looked at others work on sites such as Youtube and Vimeo to see the sorts of films that could be produced with a super 8 camera.
Research Links
Super 8 Film by ONA - Format Vimeo
ONA. (2014). Super 8 Short Film . [Online Video]. 2014. Available from: https://vimeo.com/92069466. [Accessed: 28 September 2015].
This short film was shot on Super 8, I really like the way that it was edited, the fact that it didn't have a certain continuity i.e. the film was sped up to show the journey and slowed down during the parts where we see the camera's, made to be a point of focus. I also really liked the way that the camera angles led on to each other. i.e. there was a montage at 16sec's where we see a lady walking down the street with her camera, cuts to a short clip of her holding a camera and then cuts to her walking down the street. The filmmaker (cinematographer) worked well to establish New York City, portraying a variety of camera angles showing movement i.e. local transport and members of the public.
Other key elements that stood out for me were, height of the buildings for the establishing shots, low camera angles used to look up at the subjects, the piece appeared like it had been shot at various times of day (day and night) which worked effectively against the black and white collage, all contributing to enhance the videos message of a film being made of a tourist with a camera (my personal opinion).
Personnel Ideas - Storyline and possible locations:
Take a variety of shots in the city, go out beforehand and think about they types of camera angles that could be used, using a few ideas that I picked up from my background research during Post Production.
Shoot the footage from a hand perspective, the idea behind that we use our hands for near enough everything, I think that this idea would help to create an element of suspense as the viewer won't see the character, could be anyone.
From the Super 8 film which I talked about above, I would like to explore the possibility of the film being shot in the form of a journey, perhaps the actor could be a new student, unfamiliar of the scenes and iconic places in Plymouth. However, I have started to think about the types of shot locations, I've asked people what comes to mind when they hear Plymouth, the majority said 'The Hoe, Barbican, Theatre, Vue Cinema etc so to appeal to this demographic I think that I would like to include footage to portray these landmarks, an idea that sprung to my mind would be to shoot a short piece of footage from a 1st person perspective, pull hands apart in front of camera to reveal Smeaton's Tower.
Camera angles and sound:
Wide angled shots - Use iconic places to help establish the place, time of day for the audience.
Mixture of High and Low angled shots - Idea of a low angled shot to show someone walking into frame, taking off an item of clothing, sunglasses or checking their watch, next perhaps we see them taking out a map, zoom into the name on the map but don't see their face... Welcome to Plymouth... cut to a collage with a close up crop on the name of the map, enhances the location for the short film.
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